1998

2015

The Food and Drink Forum was born

Supporting small food and drink producers in North Nottingham

The Food & Drink Forum was established on 13th February 1998 as a not-for-profit trade body, in response to a shortage of networking opportunities for food and drink businesses. It was understood that small businesses in North Nottinghamshire would benefit from a “Forum” for likeminded individuals to exchange information and share their experiences. As a result, a committee of 20 board members gathered, each from established food and drink businesses, to lend expertise initially focused towards supporting the district of Newark and Sherwood. The Forum opened its doors for business on April 1st, 1998, as a member-led organisation, and through working closely with the district council and local authorities, we initiated an interest for driving positive change.

In the early 2000’s, we advertised in the local paper, the Nottingham post, to make our presence known. From here, subsequent meetings were held to discuss food grade premises and what further work could be done to add value for small manufacturers. This work was instrumental in recognising the need for regional specialist industry support. In 2002, the Currie report ‘Farming and Food’ proposed that the time had come for locality food marketing to become mainstream in Britain, with the management of regional food to transfer to a specialist body – “Each RDA should work with Food from Britain and other partners to devise a regional food component to their regional economic strategies”. This created opportunities for us to link with larger players, putting bids together for funded support, and working in harmony to support the food and drink sector. From here, our organisation grew and so did our network of food and drink businesses!

The Opening of Southglade

Southglade Food Park is a flagship multi-million-pound scheme offering food and drink businesses a unique setting in which to develop. As the first food and drink business park of its kind in the UK, Southglade has acted as the blueprint for similar schemes across the country and other parts of the word.

Providing high grade food manufacturing space with purpose-built units which enable new and innovative food businesses to start up and grow, Southglade Food Park has helped to put Nottingham and the East Midlands on the map for its pioneering food and drink sector. Importantly, what set Southglade apart from other similar initiatives at the time was the combination of high-quality food grade premises with access to the support and advice offered by The Food & Drink Forum.

Since the Food Park opened on 1st July 2005, the Forum have supported over 1,000 businesses within The Food & Drink sector, which has resulted in the creation of an estimated 1,850 new jobs, an increase in turnover of over £8million by businesses in the sector, and an investment of £2million in Research, Development and Innovation by businesses supported.

The Food & Drink Innovation Network (iNet) was one of a number of sector specific iNets, originally established by the East Midlands Development Agency (EMDA) in response to a growing recognition that businesses had to be innovative to be successful and that the region was experiencing an innovation deficit. The ambition was for the iNets to bring together industry, research and other innovation stakeholders from around the region with strengths in selected priority sectors – significantly raising the number and quality of interactions between them and thereby increasing levels of innovation. In conjunction with the regional partners in the East Midlands, The Forum operated The Food & Drink iNet which coordinated specialist support to stimulate innovation in the food and drink industry.

This network provided funding to bring businesses’ ideas and academic experience together to drive innovation. In its first three years, the food and drink iNet supported more than 80 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) with grants and innovation projects delivering over 1,000 instances of one-to-one tailored support and guidance.

Located on a 1.5-acre site owned by Leicester City Council, the £5.8m Leicester Food Park was funded by Leicester City Council and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) 2007 – 2013 programme and is managed by the East Midlands Chamber working in partnership with The Food & Drink Forum.

At the heart of the food park community is the Management Hub. Since February 2015, the Food & Drink Forum’s onsite presence has offered dedicated business and food technical support to tenants and the wider Leicester & Leicestershire food and drink community. The Management Hub also provides practical, affordable conference facilities for local businesses.

In conjunction with our regional partner, The Mallows Company, the FEAST (Food Enterprise advisory Support Team) project was set up to co-ordinate specialist support and stimulate competitiveness in the food and drink industry. Working with predominantly early-stage food and drink producers, FEAST developed an effective network that provided funding and specialist technical/mentoring support. The project's success, which was partly funded by the European Regional Development Fund, led to our bid to deliver a second project, FEAST2, which began in January 2019.

Both projects were hugely successful in helping businesses across Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire,
North Northamptonshire, West Northamptonshire, Bedford Borough, Central Bedfordshire and Milton Keynes.

FEAST provided the following comprehensive range of support.

Grant Funding
Grant funding was available to eligible businesses looking to purchase production equipment to help increase their productivity and create jobs.

Business Mentoring
Eligible businesses were provided with fully funded access to industry experts, to receive mentoring in any aspect of business. FEAST2 mentors have a wealth of experience in running food and drink manufacturing businesses and are keen to share their knowledge with you.

Industry Events
In conjunction with industry partners, the Forum ran industry-specific events throughout the course of the project, bringing together like-minded businesses to share knowledge, best practice and experience.

Marketing Intelligence
Access information market insight on food and drink trends and consumer habits in order to help businesses identify opportunities to grow.

Technical Support
Eligible businesses received up to 12 hours of fully funded assistance from the Forum’s Technical Team with issues such as; shelf life extension, labelling, nutritional advice, factory layout, product development, food standards and implementation and accreditation

We are celebrating our 25th year by evolving our support to meet the future needs of both early stage food and drink producers and established manufacturers.

Grant funded projects
The FEAST project came to an end in June after seven very successful years. Building on our business links and expertise, we are continuing to work with other governmental and not-for-profit organisations to deliver UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) projects. The details of our latest project will be announced later in the autumn.

Membership offering
After extensive consultation with our members and other stakeholders, we refreshed our Business Membership offering in October. The new offering provides our members with the means to help upskill themselves and their teams and thereby helping to strengthen their businesses, whilst still providing one-to-one access to our team of Technical experts.

The Forum was awarded the management of Food Works, Innovation Centre, by North Somerset Council who secured funding from the West of England Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) to create Food Work.

In addition to 12 food-grade business units, Food WorksSW boasts fully equipped food and drink development spaces, including and bakery, dairy and drinks kitchen. In addition, it includes flexible meeting rooms and conferences space, an informal business lounge.

All 12 units are now fully occupied. The development kitchens are available for sessional hire.

In addition to site management, the Forum’s Technical Team provide food safety and product development support to both tenants and food and drink businesses in the region.